Cinema and mass media

(With special
permission by the author).

The Indian Nation
and

Screenimagination

By
Subbarayudu G Kameswara

The movie camera
has captured certain developments in India as no
other chronicler has. An imagination greater
than that of middle-class mythologies, an ideology
that’s more radical than Kalki
avataar’s, a narrative that is more racy
than history or fiction, and a socio-political
consciousness that puts to shame all election
manifestoes – that is Indian cinema; at all
events Hindi Cinema, which is more or less the
most popular art/entertainment mode of
India.

Telugu Cinema is known
to be the next biggest cinema industry in India.
However, since a considerable number of Telugu,
Tamil and Kannada films are remakes of each other
if not simply dubbed (voice-over) versions,
and many Hindi films are remakes or dubbed
versions of these South Indian films, it may not
be unreasonable to view South Indian Cinema (along
with Hindi films) as the most representative
sample of Indian Cinema. Indeed, there is so much
exchange between South Indian and Hindi Cinema,
that one might treat all of it as the totality of
mainstream Indian Cinema.

This mainstream Indian
Cinema has, over the years, resorted to fantasy as
the chief mode of ‘solving’ social
problems. An imagined India has emerged as a
counterpoint to the reality of a nation in
perpetual turmoil. But this cinemagined India has
not remained a constant; it has changed with the
passage of time and trends. An entire history and
mythology has given way to its modernized version.
Thus comes to pass a violence that the Buddha and
Gandhi would have blanched at; and Asoka’s
Kalinga war would barely merit juxtaposition,
forget the ‘Rakkasi Thangadi’ of the
Kannada people (Battle of Talikota, Bahamani
alliance vs. Vijayanagara Empire,1565), and
Jalianwala bagh of the Punjab. The nation in
turmoil has given rise to a cinemagination
that celebrates the maniacal violence of the
single, Kalki avatar-hero who is defender of
good and destroyer of evil. The cinemagined
assumptions underlying the construction and
depiction of this modern mythology, the
interpolation/ interlacing of mythic and cultural
imagination and iconography as a response to
systemic erosion; the social reality of passive
acceptance of horrific conditions, and the
cinematic response of superhuman heroism in
neutralizing, if not emphatically conquering and
decimating the forces of evil – is a
representation of a civilizational paradox worth
studying and chronicling.

Such a study, I suggest,
will demonstrate the cinemagined commitment to
social reform and the notionality of national good
in real time as seen in Indian mainstream cinema.
The camera places chimeras before us and we, as a
people are lapping it up because reality gives not
a chance of triumph to a moral order, old
new or reinvented. Cinemagination is
the new anodyne to the masses, who applaud in
theatres, cinema-solutions to what they suffer
silently in reality, while the nation
crumbles upon itself. It is almost as if
imagination overtook the nation even before the
nation could be born The fantasy of the
midnight’s child has given no chance to the
nation to emerge from the shadow of the valley of
death. The camera does – in shadow
play.

Will
Senapati , the Only One (Okaey Okkadu), Singamalai
and Tagore really come?

The number of South
Indian films from the days of Gemini Productions,
Prasad Art Productions, AVM, and Vijaya Vauhini,
which have been either remade in or dubbed
into Hindi or vice-versa , is quite considerable.
Chandralekha, Prema Lekhalu (Aah), Pakkinti
Ammaayi (Padosan), Aththaa Oka Inti Kodaley (Saas
Bhji Kabhi Bahu Thi), Illarikam (Sasuraal),
Kaadalikka Neramillai/Preminchi Choodu (Pyaar Kiye
Jaa), Paapa Kosam (Nanha Farishta),Kula Daivam
(Bhaabhi, ‘chal ud jaa re panchee’
fame), Suvarna Sundari (‘Kuhoo Kuhoo Boley
Koyaliya’ fame), Anarkali (Anarkali of
‘Yeh Zindagee Useeki hai, jo kiseeka ho
gaya’),Nazraana (Pelli Kaanuka) . Gruha
Lakshmi / Vivaaha Bandham were remakes of the
Bengali film Saat Paa ke Baandha; and Vivaaha
Bandham in turn was made into the Hindi film Kora
Kaagaz, Mooga Manasulu (Milan),Punarjanma (
Khilona), Ritwik Ghaatak’s Meghe Dhaake Tara
(Anthu leni Katha), Parineetha as Parineetha, Mana
Voori Paandavulu (Hum Paanch), Shankaraabharanam
(Sur Sangam with Girish Karnad), Yugandhar (remake
of Don)are a small sample. The famous
Malayalam film Tulaabhaaram was made into a less
successful Hindi one Samaaj ko
Badal Daalo. Takazhi Sivasankara
Pillai’sChemmeen did not have the
honour of being remade in Hindi ( but one major
feature of Malayalam cinema at that juncture was
Salil Chaudhuri’s music. Other musicians who
helped integrate this mainstream
cinema were Raghunath Paanigrahi, Shankar of the
Shankar-Jaikishen duo, and M.S. Subbulakshmi
through her role as Meera). Dilip Kumar’s
Ram aur Shyam was originally NTR’s
Ramudu-Bheemudu ; Dil Ek Mandir was
remade as Manasey Mandiram , and Aadmi was
again an NTR original
Gudigantalu.

The Jeetendra,
Jayaprada, Sridevi phase of
‘Madrasi’ films in Hindi is recent
enough to support this
‘main-streaming’ of the Bollywood and
South Indian cinema. While South Indian actresses
and actors went into Bollywood in the early phase
– Classical dancers such as Vaijayantimala,
Waheeda Rehman, Padmini, Raagini, & Hema
Malini; talented actresses such as Pandari Bai,
Geetanjali , Savitri,B.Saroja Devi, Jamuna,
Bharati, Rekha, Talluri Rameshwari, Jayaprada,
Sridevi, Bhanupriya etc. occasionall;
an NTR or Gemini Ganesan in a couple of
Hindi films, Girish Karnad, Anant Nag,
Rajnikaanth, Mohan Lal, Madhavan and the enduring
Kamala Haasan, -- a reverse trend, further
strengthening the premise, is quite noticeable
now, especially with actresses who get into
Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu films across the
linguistic barrier--Khushboo,Naghma, Bhumika
Chawla, Sonali Bendre, Aarti Aggarrwal, Amisha
Patel, Shriya … Amrish Puri,
Paresh Rawal ,, Sayaji
Shinde…

In all these films,
there is a visible motif which indicates the
movie-makers’ awareness and perceptions of
social and political realities , and the key role
they expected their heroes to play in the
narrations; and the key role of such films in the
making of a new India.

The central characters
in these films were deeply committed to certain
ideologies and were portrayed as instruments of
change, arrows of God. I would single out Raju
from Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai as the
model, the quintessential innocent do-gooder, a
Chaplinesque, golden-hearted bounder… He is
‘king’ of the land where the Ganges
flows in all its pious purity and , his job is to
make new songs all the time and sing them to the
world – should there be no listeners, just
sing to himself, a bit like Shelley’s
skylark (“mera naam Raaju gharaana
anaam/behati hai Ganga jahaaan mera dhaam …
kaam naye nith geet banana/geet banaa ke jahaan ko
sunanaa/koyi na miley tau Akeley mein
gaanaa…”); and the burden of the
song, the narrated narrative, would be that
truth lived on the lips where purity lived in the
heart (“honthon pe sachaai rehti hai, jahaan
dil mein safaayee rehti hai”); that one must
live and love ,else one simply hangs(on?) to death
(“pyaar kar le, naite phaansi chadh
jaayegaa”); and when some one goes astray,
there is a society that beckons to them, a moral
order that re-invites them into its fold, so let
us all go back, not spurn it. The goodness of Raju
rules the disintegrating world , and he along with
Kamini (Kammo, the one who attracts , allures, the
home-maker and sustainer of kinship-ethic) ) draws
you back into the moral order with invisible
threads of love (“aaa ab laut Chalein
… nainaa bichaaye ,baahen pasaare, tujhko
pukaare desh teraa”). He is KING. He is an
incarnation, may I suggest, of Lord Vishnu in the
Krishnaavataara, who sings (geet banaa ke jahaan
ko sunana , make songs and sing them for the
world)),dances and plays into the hearts of
people and -- sings the Song Celestial
(Bhagavad Geetha) which shows the path of
righteousness ; or a Jayadeva’s Geeta
Govinda ( Govinda’s Song of
Love), to a world caught in moral turmoil
?.

This pattern of a
‘good’ man, ‘good’ action,
and restoration of ‘good’ is evident
in Shantaram’s Do Aankhen Baarah Haath
and some other movies I mentioned
earlier. Again, Raj Kapoor’s
Jaagte Raho is a fine example of
how conquest of the fear of indictment
is central to individual freedom for good
action, as collective agreement on what
constitutes ‘good’ is the
acquisition of power for social
‘good’ action.

Various kinds
of Romances such as Pyaasa (‘Jinhe
naaz hai Hind par who kahaan hai’ and
‘Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya
hai’) , Phir Subha Hogi ( based on
Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment :
‘woh subuha kabhii to
aayegi’)Sangam, Mujhe Jeene Do,
Junglee,Waqt, Kaajal,Jhanak jhanak Paayal Baaje,
Around the World, Love in Tokyo, Jewel
Thief, An Evening in Paris, Teesri Manzil,
Aaradhna, Anand, rule the roost for a while, with
Hum Dono as some kind of an exception in
part, because it revolves round the lives of two
look-alike military officers – who suffer
something of the pain of war that the
post-China-war film Haqeeqat depicts quite
more authentically a little later.
’Good’ is romanticized in
different ways: Nanda’s song
‘Allah tero naam, Eeshwar tero
naam’ makes faith in God, regardless
of religious ideology/ affiliation, the way of
gaining strength and salvation ( the Telugu
–speaking world is familiar with the
romantic poet, Devulapalli Krishna Sastri’s
simple and sensitive lyric ‘Naaraayana
Naaraayana, Allaah Allaah/maa paaliti thandrree
mee pillala memella’ :-- Naarayana or
Allah be your name / we are your children,
all the same); Dev Anand, the young officer
in army, is intensely ‘moral’
and does everything in his power to avoid
the sexual opportunities that arise from
being the look-alike of Nanda’s
husband.—by a whisker, literally, since
Nanda’s husband is a mustachioed Major, and
the younger officer isn’t. India
bubbles, boils and troubles, but the witches
and villains still fight a losing battle
with the moral order; even the rare (very
adult and morally repugnant to Indian Censor
Boards) Bambai ka Baabu honours the ethics
of kinship –relationship as Dev
Anand’s unspeakable romantic love for
an ‘adopted’ sister, Suchitra Sen,
gnaws away at his innards to the accompaniment of
a soulful Mukesh song ‘chal ree sajnee, ab
kya sonche’.

The finest scene from
Deewar

From this phase,
mainstream Indian cinema moves to the phase
of the angry young Amitabh Bachchan :
Deewar, Zanjeer and Zameer .These films
begin to suggest strongly that one must fight ones
own battles and , to win them; and it hardly
matters that the weapons may often be
unlicensed, illegal ones. Phir Subah
Hogi’s insistent hope that a new dawn
will come some time (‘woh subuha kabhii tau
aayegi’) gives way to a starkness and steely
stance The woman , keeper of moral order
(‘merey paas maa hai’—Shashi
Kapoor’s famous one-liner inDeewar) is gone
and the despair is evident (MereyApney –
Kishore Kumar’s haunting song
“koyii hota jisko apnaa, hum apnaa keh
letey yaaron/paas nahii tau duur hi hota, lekin
koyi mera apnaa”). In Zameer (ironically,
‘Conscience’) Amitabh Bachchan sings a
landmark song—where truth does not work,
there falsehood is Okay/ where Right can not be
asserted, there loot,pillage is Okay
(‘jahaan sach na chale, wahan jhooth sahi/
jahan haq na mile wahan loot sahi’)
signifying a new consciousness that asserts the
survival motif as justified in inteself.. This is
in stark contrast with Dev Anand’s Hum Dono
song which philosophises – I just
abide with life, and accept its highs and lows ,
its joys and sorrows with equanimity (“main
zindagi ka saath nibhaata chalaa gayaa”), a
la the sthitha pragnya of Bhagavad Geetha (
the 2nd adhyaya, Dukheshwanudwigna manaah,
Sukheshu vigatha Spruha, veeta raga, bhayah,
krodhaah, stithadheermunihruchyatey….). In
between is squeezed in a random song
that begins to question the nation ( Gandhi
puttina desama yidi/ Nehru korina sanghama idi/
Rama Rajyam, saamya vaadam, sambhavinchey kaalamaa
: is this the land where Gandhi was born? Is this
the society that Nehru wanted? Are these times
when Ram Rajya and socialistic egalitarianism
possible? in Pavitrabandham picturized on
ANR -- compare this with Harivansh Rai
Bachchan’s poem from the collection Do
Chattaane: ‘Ek din itihaas poochega ki tumne
janm Gandhi ko diya tha? )

Films with increasing
doses of violence, brutality, corruption, display
of private intrigue and public treachery,
lawlessness,defiance of what appears to be an
ineffective code that is now only in the
book and nowhere in the system, suffuse the market
and grab the imagination of a nation.

This phase, I submit,
corresponds with the phase in Indian political and
social life which is increasingly and quite
brazenly flaunting its lack of moral order. While
Indira Gandhi’s Congress was Nationalizing
Banks, and abolishing privy purses to the
erstwhile princes, the print medium led the people
in glorifying her leadership and denigrating the
opposition (Nijalin‘gappa’, Morarji
Desai, Tarakeshwari Sinha were a prime
target of BK Karanjia’s Blitz). Meanwhile
the Indo-Pak war cut Pakistan in twain , and
Indira rode to massive power on the sentiment of
people including Atal Behari Vajpayee and MF
Hussain who saw the goddess Durga in her ( no one
thought then that there was something
objectionable and offensive to Hindu sentiment in
HussaIn painting). What followed was a
permit-license raj, and plenty of red tape which
meant one bribed ones way through to results and
passed on the burden to the people through
sky-rocketing prices. Tax evasions and unaccounted
money were the order of the day, and a chit
of exoneration to a minister (Jagjivan Ram) for
tax evasion on a massive scale was just routine
little matter of fact. The MP ,Tulmohan
Ram’s Bribery Case, Lalit Narayan
Mishra’s involvement in raising illegal
funds for the Congress party, and his death on the
surgeon’s table after a grenade blast (at
Samastipur; the case is still in court 37
years down the line); Jimmy Nagarwala’s 60
lakhs’ SBI telephone fraud, long queues at
ration shops and 40 to 50 day waiting lists for
cooking gas cylinder refills; and the late
night proclamation of Internal Emergency in 1975
following the Allahabad High Court’s
judgement against Indira Gandhi; the defiance of
law, the 42nd Constitutional amendment placing the
PM, among others, outside the purview of even the
Supreme Court; the emergence of an upstart young
man as an extra constitutional authority, and his
cronies everywhere as little centers of power;
suspension of Fundamental Rights and the
writ of habeas corpus, the vasectomization/
sterilization of masses of illiterate people,
press censorship…

No wonder the cinemas
sang those songs: where truth does not work, there
falsehood is Okay/ where Right can not be
asserted, there loot, pillage is Okay. (This is
also the Raakshasa neeti as preached by the guru
Sukracharya to King Maha Bali). Because people did
not dare. As was pointed out in later years,
men crawled when they were asked to
kneel.

But the ideology of
Amitabh’s Zameer was neither sufficient nor
practical. From the shadows of Sholay and Don, an
angry hybrid mechanic Albert Pinto had to emerge,
unable to define his anger(Albert Pinto Ko Gussa
Kyon Aatha Hai), turn into an unemployed
graduate Kamala Hasan in Aakali Raajyam (
Realm of Hunger ,Telugu) turn into a more educated
but uncertain lawyer, nervous Naseeruddin Shah in
Aakrosh, and an Om Puri in the role of a
furious police officer ready to kill
underworld dons ( Ardh Satya).

South Indian films were
mimicking some of these gestures till Kamala Hasan
did the role of Varadarajan Mudaliar, the Bombay
don, in Nayakan in Tamil and Telugu, later
made into the Hindi film Dayaavaan with Vinod
Khanna in the lead. Kamala Hasan realized that
making movies in three languages, often simply
dubbing them, with himself in the lead role was a
perfect formula for the Bollywood cash registers,
too. If a message that went beyond establishing
the human face of a ruthless mafia man could be
packaged well, that would be the icing on
the proverbial cake.

What
could that message be?

Whatever Indira
Gandhi’s purpose was in her casual statement
that corruption, was a global phenomenon, and need
not be made a big issue in Indian electoral
politics, the Indian Reality was that
Lokaayukta and Lokpal bills never went
beyond Cabinet sub-committees; Bhopal,
Bofors-Hinduja-Win Chadda scam, Dhirubhai
Ambani’s 100 crore-smuggled in-PFY Plant, an
attempt on Nusli Wadia’s life, St.
Kitts’ scandal, Swaraj Paul versus
Escorts’ H.P. Nanda share take over issue,
Harshad Mehta scam, the pulling down of the
Babri Masjid, the Bombay bomb blasts, the killing
of music baron Gulshan Kumar, the Latur-Osmanabad
earth quake mismanagement, , coalitions of
political convenience, Azharuddin’s ouster
from world cricket due to match-fixing
allegations, the Abu Salems and Chota Shakeels,
the Tandur murder case and point-blank shooting
down of Jessica Lal in Delhi; terrorist
attacks at will anywhere they chose, the
displacement of Kashmiri Pandits, State level
politicians fighting over River water-sharing
between states, -- money really makes the world go
round ( the Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey song in
Cabaret is an eternal metaphor) and India was
turning like a top. Money, bribery,
scams.

Repeat…
What could that message be?

Kamala Hasan hit upon
the idea of Bharateeyudu/Hindustaani/Indian
as a movie. An old time freedom fighter ,
Senapati (“Commander”) sees corruption
and bribery everywhere and having been a rare
Martial arts exponent, decides to weed out
corruption as best as he can. His skills,
determination and dagger see him through the film,
Even the son who is ‘pragmatic’
and lives by corrupt practices dies at his
hands. The Senapati,takes command of the situation
when the son reminds him of paternal love—a
television as bribe to the police inspector to
ignore criminal evidence, and an invocation
of love for me? Bribe every where!!
Kamala Hasan kills the bribing son and warns the
officials on phone, whenever and wherever my
country needs me, I’am there. Sambhavaami
yuge yuge, as Lord Vishnu says ("Yada yada hi
dharmasya glanir bhavati Bharata; Abhyutthanam
adharmasya tadatmanam srijamyaham/ Paritranaya
sadhunam vinasaya cha dushkritam;
Dharma-samsthapanarthaya sambhavami yuge yuge.").
And what, pray is the proper incarnation in
this age of degeneration, and corruption? The
avatar of KALKI, the one who destroys evil
and gives succour to good, the last of the 10
incarnations, Dashaavataara. Senapati, Indian, is
the one who takes command as Kalki.

This is Kamala
Hasan’s cinema message, and recent south
Indian films, Okaey Okkadu (Naayak in Hindi),
Simhadri, and Tagore take this mythic formula very
far. While a young TV journalist takes the
challenge of a politician very literally and
becomes Chief Minister, he does things in one day
which amount to cleansing politics and society of
the decades of accumulated grime. People are wowed
by him. He dismisses, suspends, arrests corrupt
officials on a scale and a speed at which
only a superhuman being, an avatar , can manage.
When he is attacked later and is set ablaze he
jumps into a mire to quell the flames, then
emerges covered in slush. He is given a ritual
bath in milk, an Abhisheka (Holy, anointing bath),
by the people.

When Singamalai, in
Simhadri , kills all those ruffians around the
temple and then impales their leader inside the
temple premises, he is covered in gore.The head
priest performs an Abhisheka, a ritual bath in
milk. The implication stares in the face. Whenever
anarchy becomes rife, and people can no longer
help themselves , the lord takes the form of the
ruthless Kalki, and massacres the
evil-doers. And people must recognize this
manifestation of God , and worship him, and seek
his help.

That is what Indian
people are doing right now. Waiting for the mythic
solutions to real-time problems, and applauding
the silver-screen avatars in the
interim.

In Tagore , the
mega-star of Telugu films, Chiranjeevi, takes the
role of a teacher who forges a strong force of his
students into a cleansing network of employees at
various levels of the state machinery. This anti
corruption force (ACF) gives him enough
information to nail various corrupt officials. He
justifies his killings by citing from
Tagore’s Geetanjali the verse that reads
“Where the mind is without fear …
unto that land, let my country awake”. He
also sings from the great Telugu poet Sri
Sri ( of the progressive writers’ movement)
from his landmark volume, Mahaprasthaanam
the song which goes Nenu saitam (I
too… ), rewritten for the cinematic context
by Suddala Ashok Teja

The cinema I have cited
uses myth, history, literature, and politics,
music and traditional dances/ masques as in
Simhadri (Kathakali and Kodiyattam) and weaves a
cinematic text that is rich in imagery, and fires
up the imagination of the people in such a way
that they almost seem to begin to believe that a
powerful Kalki incarnation will actually
come and rescue them from the horror of a system
from which they have no power of action to break
free. Like in Lagaan, they sing ‘O paalan
hare, nirgun au nyaarey, tumhare bina hamraa kauno
naheen’. Will, the Kalki figure –
Indian, Purushottam the One-day CM,
Singamalai, and Tagore really come? An India
at war with itself, never really born in 1947,
over 600 states having acceded, redrawn into
linguistic states, unable to decide whether Nation
comes first, or sub-nation of any kind does,
mid-night’s children born and dead in an
émigré’s mind—really, is
at least one ( the only one, okaey okkadu, Kalki
avatar) of the few hundred midnight’s
children alive?— such an India does need
such a figure. But GM Khairnar, the Mumbai
demolition man, TN Seshan, PS Appu of the
IAS Academy (1980s),AP Venkateswaran (Foreign
Secretary treated shabbily by the Govt. in the
90s),Sundarlal Bahuguna, Medha Patkar… .
Kalki is still only in cinema because it is still
only the first phase of Kali Yuga.There is more to
Go.

There is much more
Indian cinema that deals with the issue of
an evolving Indian, either at length or in
passing.. The two movies I would pick for
inclusion in this analysis are Naseeruddin
Shah’s A Wednesday and a Telugu film
namedKhadgam with Prakash Raj in a stellar
role.

Prakash Raj is the
Indian Muslim who strongly resents any demur
on his ‘Indian’ness, contests
all aspersions on his loyalty and
‘belonging’ness, and willingly
sacrifices his ‘jehadi’, anti-national
younger brother along with a wanted terrorist who
is on the verge of release from captivity as
ransom for a trainload of people at the
major railway station, ostensibly at Hyderabad.
His contention is that this land is as much
‘theirs’ as anyone else’s, since
they were born here and WILL DIE here no matter
what any majoritarian views. Already the
religion, community, threat-perceptions and
terrorism motifs are presented in a
‘popular’ melodramatic
style. This is a trend one sees in movies such as
Roja and Bombaywhere the personal and the
socio-political nation versus nation themes are
interwoven with the personal themes
dominating for obviously commercial
purposes.

Shah’s Common Man
in A Wednesday goes beyond this
‘personal’ profile and
takes the collective will of the aam aadmi
of this country to repulse terrorism in the
same language of sophisticated violence. The
threat is from a religion-driven terrorism,
a national antagonism dating back to 1947,
and the almost paralytic response of the
Indian administration to the fear that
grips the heart of the housewife. The inoccuous
husband for whom the average Mumbai wife fears and
makes three phone calls a day, turns out to be the
common man who is sick of this fear and this
paralysis and executes a masterful
counter-terrorist plan to liquidate four
terrorists. Is this the Kalki figure India
has been looking for?

Fast forward to 2011.
Cinema is largely supplanted by television. The TV
brings home to millions of households the Anna
Hazare team and the Lok Pal issue from the days of
Morarji Desai and Indira Gandhi. The crowds
which came to see, Shivaji Rao Gaekwad
(Anil Kapoor, Nayak) Singamalai (NTR Junior,
Simhadri), Tagore (Chiranjeevi) in the movies are
NOW in the Ramlila Maidan, Delhi, and in each
household that had a TV. Whatever happened to the
LokPal bill later in the winter session of the
Indian Parliament, does not detract from the fact
that a pint-sized, 74 year-old ex-Indian army
jawan, perhaps as small as little Lal Bahadur
Shastri, had galvanized the Indian masses by
donning, although briefly, the Kalki avatar.
Here, if anywhere, does the message
and the medium coalesce, and the form
of the Kalki avatar show itself as reality,
not telemagination. Many people seemed to
echo Telugu poet Sri Sri’s words
‘Nenu saitam…’ (I, too will
offer myself as a straw for the cosmic fire/ I too
will join my mad voice to the roar of
cosmos/I too will merge as a tear into the
surging seas/ I, too will turn into a brief
phrase in the raging crescendo of the Veena) .
Imagination turned into action long enough for a
sick, corrupt ruling class to shudder at the
prospect of the tenth avatar which would demand
explanations about the CWG fiasco, the 2G scam,
and the Swiss accounts and the Mauritian route of
investment in corruption.

Move over, Heinrch
Zimmer.The myths of India now have a
peoples’ medium of interpretation and
exhortation to action.

____________________________

NOTE: This is a
updated version of a presentation made at an
international conference in 2005 (Camera and
Chimera: The Indian and Cinemagination). For my
convenience and that of most readers, I have used
the names of actors to identify the films, not the
names of producers/directors. I have also used
songs liberally as metaphors of the themes
and forms of the movies.